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.  i 


AUTHOR: 


NUTTING,  H.  C. 


TITLE: 


TWO  VERGILIAN  NOTES 


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Two  Vergilian  notes}:h[microf orml. 
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V 


[Reprinted  from  The  Classical  Journal,  Vol.  XVIII,  December,  1922,  No.  3] 


TWO  VERGILIAN  NOTES 


By  H.  C.  Nutting 
The  University  of  California 


I.    Aeneid,  ii.  124  ff. 

Et  tnihi  iam  multi  crudele  canebant 
Artificis  scelus  et  taciti  ventura  videhant. 
Bis  quinos  silet  ille  dies  tectusque  recusal 
Prodere  vcx:e  sua  quemquam  aut  opponere  morti. 
Vix  tandem,  magnis  Ithaci  clamoribus  actus, 
Composito  rumpit  vocem  et  me  destinat  arae. 

In  thii>  passage,  the  word  taciti  (125)  had  been  a  storm  centre 
ever  since  we  have  a  record  of  the  commentary  upon  it.  Follow- 
ing the  lead  of  Servius,  most  of  the  commentators  have  held  that 
multi  (124)  and  taciti  (125)  refer  to  two  different  groups  of 
people, —  thus  avoiding  an  apparent  clash  in  predicating  canebant 
and  taciti  of  the  same  group.  To  quote  the  words  of  Servius : 
''  'multi'  bis  intellegendum;  id  est  multi  videbant  taciti,  multi 
etiam  dicebant,  ne  sit  contrarium  'canebant  taciti'" 

This  is  a  not  impossible  interpretation,  though  even  those 
who  adopt  it  admit  freely  that  Vergil  has  not  expressed  himself 
very  well,  if  this  really  is  his  meaning.  A  second  difficulty  lies 
in  the  fact  thatit  would  run  counter' to  the  style  of  the  passage  as 
a  whole  to  have  a  change  of  subject  in  a  sentence  constructed  as 
this  is.  Everywhere  in  the  neighborhood,  periods  abound  in 
which  the  second  clause  carries  on  the  subject  of  the  first,  adding 
items  so  closely  related  that  in  some  cases  tautology  might  well 
be  charged.  For  example,  in  the  citation  above.  Bis  quinos  silet 
ille  dies  is  carried  on  by  tectusque  recusat  prodere  voce  sua ;  and 
again,  within  that  second  clause  itself,  prodere  voce  sua  is  carried 
on  by  aut  opponere  morti.    Cf.  also 

77  ff. :  Cuncta  ....  f atebor  .  .  .  neque  .  .  .  negabo. 

165 


166  THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 

94  ff :  Nee  tacui  demens  et  me  .  .  .  .  promisi  ultorem. 

106:  Prosequitur  pavitans  et  ficto  pectore  fatur.  ' 

130  ff. :  Adsensere  omnes  et  .  .  .  .  tulere. 

134 :  Eripui  ....  leto  me  et  vincula  rupi. 

145 :  His  lacrimis  vitam  damus  et  miserescimus  ultro. 

Even  when  the  grammatical  subject  changes,  the  thought  carries 
on  in  the  same  way ;  e.  g. 

309  ff. :  Tum  vero  manifesta  fides  Danaumque  patescunt 
Insidiae. 

Under  the  stress  of  this  "swing"  in  the  composition,  we  advance 
with  certain  step  through  a  period  Hke  the  following  (259  ff.)  : 

Illos  patefactus  ad  auras 
Reddit  equus,  laetique  cavo  se  robore  promunt 
Thessandrus  Sthenelusque  duces  et  dims  Ulixes. 

Just  as  in  this  last  cited  passage  the  style  of  the  whole  context 
inclines  us  instinctively  to  interpret  laetique  as  carrying  on  Illos 
(and  not  as  introducing  a  new  subject  of  discourse),  so,  in  the 
passage  which  is  the  basis  of  this  note,  et  taciti^s  most  naturally 
felt  as  appending  a  second  detail  regarding  the  same  subject. 

Though  they  do.  not  state  their  reasons,  it  probably  is  on  some 
such  ground  as  this  that  both  Conington  and  Page  reject  the 
Servian  interpretation,  and  undertake  to  discover  a  means  of 
reconciling  canebant  and  taciti  as  applied  to  one  subject.  Page 
tries  to  find  a  way  out  through  canebant,  which,  he  says,  may 
here  refer  merely  to  prophetic  foreboding  and  not  to  speech. 
Hence  he  renders  "And  against  me  already  many  were  divining 
the  schemfer's  cruel  crime,  and  silently  foreseeing  the  future." 
Conington  trains  his  guns  on  taciti,  with  the  remark :  "  'taciti'  is 
not  strictly  consistent  with  'canebant' ;  but  Vergil  probably  means 
that  the  forebodings  were  privately  whispered,  not  openly  ex- 
pressed, for  fear  of  Ulysses." 

It  must  be  confessed  that  both  of  these  interpretations  leave 
much  to  be  desired.  Conington's  note,  however,  offers  a  useful 
suggestion,  namely,  that  while  the  whole  sentence  refers  to  the 
attitude  of  the  same  group  of  people  (mwW),  its  first  clause  re- 


TIVO  VERGILIAN  NOTES 


167 


fleets  their  relation  to  Sinon,  and  the  other  their  relation  to 
Ulysses.  This  helps  in  the  interpretation  of  taciti;  but  I  very 
much  question  whether  Vergil  meant  to  suggest  that  the  remarks 
to  Sinon  were  whispered. 

Rather,  I  fancy  that  our  difficulty  here  is  due,  in  part  at  least, 
to  the  unnatural  limitations  which  we  are  inclined  to  put  upon 
the  meaning  of  words  because  most  of  us  have  learned  Latin  in 
an  artificial  way.  At  one  stage  in  the  process  it  was  helpful, 
no  doubt,  to  'distinguish  synonyms';  but  if  this  process  leaves 
the  impression  that  these  "distinctions"  are  as  the  laws  of  the 
Medes  and  Persians,  the  procedure  is  not  without  its  disad- 
vantages. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  learn  'that  vetus  refers  to  the  old  that  still 
exists,  while  antiquus  is  used  of  the  old  that  has  passed  away'; 
but  the  student  will  not  find  that  the  rule  sheds  much  light  on 
Horace,  Epod.  2.23  : 

Libet  iacere  modo  sub  antiqua  ilice. 

And  while  accido  and  contingo  often  allow  of  clear  distinction, 
this  can  hardly  be  said  of  the  following  cases  : 

Tac.  Dial.  23 :  Porro  ne  in  corpore  quidem  valitudinem  medici 
probant,  quae  animi  anxietate  contingit. 

Cic.  De  Leg.  ii.  42:  quo  quid  accidere  potuit  homini  praecla- 
rius  ?^ 

So  we  have  a  rule  in  regard  to  taceo  and  sileo,  whereby  the 
former  is  said  to  be  confined  to  cases  where  speech  merely  is  re- 
frained from,  the  other  being  more  general  in  its  scope.  It  is 
interesting  that  both  these  verbs  are  found  in  the  passage  now 
under  discussion.  Of  Calchas  it  is  said :  Bis  quinos  silet  ille 
dies  tectusque  recusat  prodere  voce  sua  quemquam  aut  opponere 
morti.  On  the  face  of  it,  silet  here  is  used  in  the  narrower  sense 
of  refraining  from  speech  (note  voce  sua) ;  and  if  there  were 
otherwise  room  for  doubt  it  might  be  observed  that  his  change 
of  policy  at  the  end  of  the  specified  period  is  designated  by 
rumpit  vocem  ('he  broke  into  speech').  / 

1  Cf.  Caesar,  B.  G.  ivJ22;  satis  opportune  accidisse. 


168 


THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 


Conversely,  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  expect  taceo 
at  times  to  show  a  wider  meaning;  cf.  Hor.  Car.  iii.  29.  23ff. : 

Caretque 
Ripa  vagis  taciturna  ventis." 

It  is  suggested  therefore,  that  in  the  Virgilian  passage  taciti 
means  not  simply  that  many  who  warned  Sinon  of  the  fate  in 
store  for  him  failed  to  register  a  spoken  protest  with  Ulysses ; 
they  abstained  from  any  effort  in  behalf  of  the  threatened  man, 
though  they  saw  what  was  impending;  as  Sinon  himself  is  made 
to  say  bitterly  a  little  later  (130  flF.)  :     • 

quae  sibi  quisque  timebat, 
Unius  in  miseri  exitium  conversa  tulere. 

On  this  basis,  taciti  would  mean  something  like  'non-interfering' 
or  'impassive' :  "And  even  then  many  were  predicting  to  me  the 
villany  of  the  cruel  schemer,  and  impassive  were  watching  my 
oncoming  doom." 

Another  passage  in  the  same  book  in  which  tacitus  seems  to 
require  a  similar  interpretation  is  found  in  254  flf^ 

Et  iam  Argiva  phalanx  instructis  navibus  ibat 
A  Tenedo,  tacitae  per  amica  silentia  lunae 
Litora  nota  petens. 

Here  we  have  a  closely  parallel  situation.  The  Trojans  are 
sleeping,  all  unconcious  of  danger,  and  the  moon  is  blamed  for 
not  intervening.  The  adjective  amica  shows  that  luna  is  per- 
sonified; but  does  tacitae  indicate  that  she  shows  her  partiality 
by  refusing  to  break  into  speech?  This  seems  very  unlikely. 
Rather  we  think  of  iii.  147  ff.,  where  the  bright  light  of  the  moon 
rouses  Aeneas  to  a  half-wakeful  state  in  which  he  receives  the 
message  of  the  Penates.  So  here,  had  she  been  so  disposed,  the 
moon  perhaps  might  have  shot  a  beam  into  the  eyes  of  some 
slumbering  guard  that  would  have  roused  him  to  a  sense  of  the 
impending  danger;  but  she  refrained.  Hence  apparently  we 
should  render:  'through  the  friendly  silence  of  the  impassive 
moon'. 

*  Cf.  Verg.  Aen.  iv.  525;  Cum  facet  omnis  ager. 


TWO  VBRGILIAN  NOTES 


169 


II.    Aenkid  ii.  309  ff. 

Tum  vero  manifesta  fides,  Danaumque  patescunt 
Insidiae. 

Of  the  general  bearing  of  this  sentence  there  can  be  no  doubt ; 
but  the  exact  meaning  of  Mes  is  by  no  means  clear. 

Beginning  with  Servius,  the  general  consensus  has  been  that 
it  signifies  'proof  or  'ground  for  belief ;  and  a  very  apt  parallel 
is  cited  from  Livy  vi.  13.  7,  where,  through  such  verbal  force, 
the  word  is  made  to  govern  indirect  discourse*.  With  this  in- 
terpretation, the  question  arises:  Proof  of  what?  Conington 
and  Page  agree  in  thinking  that  the  reference  is  to  the  warning 
uttered  by  Hector  in  the  vision  from  which  Aeneas  has  just  been 
aroused.  With  less  plausibility  others  have  referred  it  to  the 
Laocoon  incident  or  to  the  prophecies  of  Cassandra. 

It  is  a  matter  of  surprise  that  Servius'  own  preference  has  been 
given  so  little  consideration.  His  note  reads :  "Manifesta  Mes; 
—  non  somnii,  ut  quidam  volunt,  sed  fraudis  Graecorum;  nam 
et  hoc  sequituf      'Danaumque  patescunt  insidiae'," 

It  is  noteworthy  that  he  has  caught  the  'swing'  of  the  compo- 
sition in  this  long  passage.  He  feels  that  he  is  dealing  with 
the  type  of  sentence  described  in  the  previous  note,  wherein  the 
first  clause  carries  on  into  the  second,  even  to  the  extent  of 
tautology.  Hence  his  impulse  here  is  to  interpret  the  first  clause 
in  the  light  of  the  second. 

This  is  an  attractive  line  of  interpretation ;  and  I  suggest  that 
it  would  be  even  better,  if  we  assign  to  iides,  not  the  meaning 
'proof,  but  rather  the  sense  seen  in  the  familiar  Punica  fides  i  e 
'perfidy'*. 

In  further  support  of  this  view,  it  should  be  noted  that  the 
episode  of  Sinon  throughout  is  a  tale  of  bad  'faith',  interspersed 
with  protestations  of  good  'faith'  and  appeals  to  the  'faith'  of  the 

»  On  this  basis,  one  school  edition  has  the  following  legitimate  note  •  "fides  • 
freely,  'truth' ;  strictly,  'proof'."  Others  define  fides  directly  as  'truth,'  which 
would  make  the  word  a  synonym  for  res]  and,  while  that  results  in  good 
sense,  no  parallel  is  forthcoming  for  such  a  use  of  fides, 

*  Cf .  Heitkamp  ad  loc. 


170 


THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 


TWO  V ERG  I  LI  AN  NOTES 


171 


Trojans ;  —  the  key-note  of  the  whole  narrative  at  this  point  is 
fides.     Observe  the  following  : 

60:  hoc  ipsum  ut  strueret  Troiamque  aperiret  Achivis. 

62 :  seu  versare  dolos. 

65  ff. :  Accipe  nunc  Danaum  insidias  et  crimine  ab  uno 

Disce  omnes. 
77  ff. :  *Cuncta  equidem  tibi,  rex,  f uerit  quodcumque,  f atebor 

Vera/  inquit. 
79  ff.  Nee  si  miserum  Fortuna  Sinonem 

Finxit,  vanum  etiam  mendacemque  improba  finget. 
106 :  Ignari  scelerum  tantorum  artisque  Pelasgae. 
107 :  Prosequitur  pavitans  et  ficto  pectore  f atur. 
141  ff. :  Quod  te  per  superos  et  conscia  numina  veri, 

Per  si  qua  est  quae  restat  adhuc  mortalibus  usquam 

Intemerata  fides,  oro, 

152:  Ille,  dolis  instructus  et  arte  Pelasga. 

160 :  Tu  modo  promissis  maneas  servataque  serves, 

Troia,  fidem,  si  vera  f  eram,  si  magna  rependam. 
195  ff. :  Talibus  insidiis  periurique  arte  Sinonis 

Credita  res,  captique  dolis  lacrimisque4:oactis, 

Quos 

252 :  Myrmidonumque  dolos. 
264 :  doli  fabricator  Epeos. 

When  finally,  as  Aeneas  stands  upon  the  roof,  the  true  in- 
wardness of  the  situation  dawns  upon  him,  what  more  natural 
climax  than 

Tum  vero  manifesta  fides,  Danaumque  patescunt 
Insidiae? 

In  thus  understanding  fides,  attention  may  be  called  to  the  fact 
that  Aeneas  has  twice  above  used  the  expression  ars  Pelasga 
(106  and  152),  which  certainly  is  analogous  to  Punica  fides. 

Another  point  worth  noticing  is  the  fact  that  this  part  of 
Aeneas'  narrative  is  virtually  an  oration.  To  him,  to  speak  of 
Troy's  fall  means  to  open  old  wounds;  he  has  not  reached  the 
point,  where,  in  retrospect,  past  troubles  loom  up 

'Like  mountain-summits  overpast 
In  purple  distance  fair.* 


His  words  glow  with  hatred  of  the  treacherous  Greek;  indeed 
we  might  not  go  so  very  far  astray,  if  we  were  to  refer  to  some 
soldier  fresh  from  the  battlefield  for  an  adequate  translation  of 
such  a  phrase  as  multos  Danaum  dimittimus  Oreo  (398).  And 
when  we  come  to  one  of  the  high  points,  such  as  241  flF.  (O  pa- 
triae o  divtim  domus  Ilium  et  incluta  bello  moenia  Dardanidum!), 
somehow  we  lose  sight  of  the  guest  reclining  on  a  simiptuous 
couch  toying  with  a  wine-cup,  and  entertaining  attentive  strangers 
with  a  story ;  rather,  we  hear  the  impassioned  voice  of  a  Roman 
orator  of  Tacitean  impressiveness. 

Hence  there  may  be  a  touch  of  bitterness  in  the  use  of  the  word 
fides  in  the  passage  now  under  discussion.  If  so,  a  close*parallel 
would  be  found  in  the  words  of  Nero  as  he  lay  dying  by  his  own 
hand.  According  to  Suetonius,*^  a  centurion,  under  orders  to  take 
the  emperor  alive,  burst  into  the  room,  and,  seeing  the  flow  of 
blood,  made  a  pretence  of  a  friendly  attempt  to  staunch  it.  But 
the  dying  man  was  not  deceived,  saying  bitterly  with  his  last 
breath:  "Too  late",  and  "Here's  'loyalty'  for  you"  {"Sero",  et 
''Haec  est  fides"). 

»  Nero,  49.  4. 


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